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How to manage relationships as a first time leader
No one is going to follow you
anywhere, anytime, anyhow until you have earned the right to lead
The number one problem first-time
leaders face is failing to understand that leading requires entirely
different strengths than doing or managing. We've all experienced first-time
managers who come in with guns blazing. They think they can be successful by
doing more of what they were doing before and telling others to do the same.
But telling diminishes. At best people comply with the teller's direction.
More experienced managers persuade and support. Great leaders go one step
further to co-create a purpose-driven future with their followers.
Leading is different than
managing. Where managing is about organis ing, coordinating and telling,
leading is about inspiring, enabling and co-creating. Great leaders can also
do and tell when needed, but they focus on inspiring and enabling others to
do their absolute best together to realise a meaningful and rewarding shared
purpose.
Taking over as a leader for the
first time is a critical, careerdefining moment. Getting this transition
right accelerates your ca reer trajectory. Avoiding avoidable mistakes at
this juncture requires preparation, commitment, and follow-through.
Focus on the cause. People follow
charismatic leaders for a time. But they devote themselves over time to the
cause of a leader who inspires and enables them in the pursuit of that cause.
Those leaders have the courage to accept that leadership is not about them,
but rather about working through behaviors, relationships, attitude, values
and the environment to inspire and enable others.
Everything you do and don't do,
say and don't say, listen to and observe, communicates -247, forever. This is
the heart of leadership. Inspiring and enabling others is all about
relationships.
This is probably the biggest shift
for first-time leaders. Shifting from executing the work to delegating the
work is almost always one of the biggest challenges. You are changing habits,
and doing a 180-degree change on how you perceive your role.
The fundamental prescription is to
converge and evolve. No one is going to follow you anywhere, any time, anyhow
until you have earned the right to lead. This is why you have to become part
of the team before you can lead it. Converging starts before day one and
continues until you pivot to evolving. The value of getting a head start
cannot be overestimated. Use the time between accepting and starting a job to
craft your 100-day plan, prepare for your transition and to jumpstart
relationships. Your 100-day plan should lay out your stakeholders, message,
steps leading up to and through your early days.
Start with mapping and prioritis
ing the internal and external stakeholders who may be impacted by the
transition. Look up, across and down both inside and outside the
organisation. Up would include your boss and his or her boss.Across will
include key peers as well as key customers, suppliers, external allies,
community leaders, government officials, regulators and the like. Down will
include your direct reports as well as indirect reports tasked with working
with your team.
Then get clear on your message,
thinking through the platform for change (why people should change), vision
(what a brighter future will look like for those making the change) and call
to action (how those making the change can contribute). Pull this all
together into a headline message and key communication points. This will be
the current best thinking that you will evolve as you learn more. But you
need a place to start. The most important idea is to reach out to the most
critical stakeholders and have conversations with them before you
start.Asking for their help and advice is an act of vulnerability that never
fails to start your relationship off on the right foot. Think about it.
You're not starting by telling them to do anything. You're not starting by
talking about your self. You're starting by valuing their perspective as
you should.They will appreciate it.
Beyond that, lay out steps to
learn as much as you can and to complete your personal and professional
preparations for your new leadership role. Use day one to continue building
relationships and to start to live your message. If you care about consumers,
spend part of the day with consumers. If you care about technical innovation,
spend part of the day in the innovation lab. If you care about your major
customers, get in front of a major customer on day one. Without ever saying
what matters, people will figure it out.
Then, keep converging. Keep
learning. Keep building relationships. If people ask you for direction, tell
them you're still learning. Keep doing this until the moment you pivot. The
best way to pivot is to co-create a burning imperative. It doesn't matter if
you do this by drafting something and then getting others' input or by
pulling your team together for an imperative workshop. The output is the
same, a shared view of your mission, vision, values and priorities.This is
the “page“ that everyone refers to when they say you have to get everyone on
the same page.
Here's why this is so important.
Any idea you have before co-creating this burning im perative is an idea you
came in with and that you are trying to push on to others. By doing so you're
saying you know more than they do and that you are better than them. They
won't like that. Any idea you have after co-creating the im perative you can
relate back to the work done by all, making it “our“ idea and communicat ing
that you do value others. They will like that.
Then you can start to evolve the
team as its rightful leader. Keep strengthening relationships up, down and
across. Keep evolving your strategic process, operating process and organisational
process all with an eye on your shared purpose. That's the cause, the key
to managing relationships as a first-time leader.
The author is founder, PrimeGenesis, an
executive on boarding group.He is co-author of five books on on boarding
includingThe New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan.
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CDET28AUG15
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